Physicians’ working conditions in hospitals from the students’ perspective (iCEPT-Study)—results of a web-based survey

BACKGROUND: Medical students undergo numerous clinical clerkships. On these occasions they are confronted with current working conditions in hospitals. Because of the many implications of the students’ perceptions of these working conditions, it is important to assess those. Hereby the focus was put on the students’ perception of their supervising physician. METHODS: This study is a part of a prospective anonymized web-based survey (iCEPT-Study). The study was conducted in Germany among medical students after their clinical rotations. 1587 medical students took part in this study (63,0 % female and 37,0 % male). 11259 were invited to take part (response rate of 14,1 %). In this study a questionnaire was used which was based on the Effort-Reward-Imbalance (ERI) model and the Job-Demand-Control (JDC) model. A mathematical calculated ratio (ER- and JDC-Ratio; combined as ‘ER/JDC-Ratio’) was used to measure the students’ perceptions of working conditions, namely distress (primary outcome). As a secondary outcome perceived job satisfaction was measured. RESULTS: Distress was perceived by 67.4 % (95 %-CI: 65.1|69.7) of the students. 54.1 % (95 %-CI: 51.7|56.6) of polled students stated that their supervising physician seemed to be very satisfied with his job. Analysis of age distribution revealed that the proportion of students’ who perceived their supervising physician as very satisfied with his job dropped from 72.5 % among under 20-year olds to 63.0 % among 20–24-year olds and was at 44.5 % among the over 30-year olds. Looking at the specialty, the specialty of surgery was rated with the highest distress prevalence (ER/JDC-Ratio > 1): 81.3 % of students stated that their supervising surgeon encountered unfavorable working conditions. CONCLUSION: Two out of three medical students rated the physicians working conditions as stressful. This implicates that already in this early phase of their career the majority of medical students get to know the hospital as an unfavorable workplace concerning working conditions. To facilitate the transition from medical schools to hospitals working conditions of physicians must be improved.